Williamstown Theatre News

Scenic designer, writer and professor, MARJORIE BRADLEY KELLOGG, and costume designer DEBORAH M. DRYDEN are among the 2014 TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards recipients. The awards will be presented at a ceremony tonight, May 2, at 6:30pm, at the Hudson Theatre (145 West 44th Street).

The Bridges of Madison County, the new Broadway musical by Tony Award® and Pulitzer Prize-winning team Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman, starring five-time Tony Award-nominee Kelli O'Hara, and star of screen & stage and 2014 Drama Desk nominee Steven Pasquale, will play its final performance on Sunday, May 18, 2014, having played 137 performances.

On Friday, May 23, 2014 at 5 p.m., Barnes & Noble will welcome the stars of Broadway's THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, Kelli O'Hara and Steven Pasquale, as well as composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown, for a performance and CD signing in celebration of the show's Original Broadway Cast Recording.

odman Theatre announces that a new production of The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman, Tony Award-winning playwright, screenwriter and author and Academy Award nominee, completes its 90th Anniversary 'Season to Celebrate.' Goodman Artistic Associate Henry Wishcamper directs the 1939 classic American Southern drama that 'could not be more timely, as the play's social skewering remains satisfyingly fresh' (Los Angeles Times). The Little Foxes is slated to appear today, May 2 - June 7, 2015 as the fourth production in the 2014/2015 Season, followed by Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which runs June 20 - July 26, 2015.

Stark Naked Theatre Company concludes its third season with a compelling production of one of William Shakespeare's most fascinating plays, The Winter's Tale. Directed by acclaimed Houston actor/director Philip Lehl, The Winter's Tale opens tonight, May 2nd and runs through May 16th at STUDIO 101.

Victory Gardens Theater continues its 2013-2014 season with Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman, directed by Artistic Director Chay Yew. Death and the Maiden runs June 13 - July 13, 2014, with the press performance on June 20, 2014, at Victory Gardens Theatre, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue. Tickets to Death and the Maiden go on sale to the public at noon on May 2, 2014.

BroadwayWorld is sad to report that according to multiple sources, Tony Award-nominated director Nicholas Martin passed away yesterday, April 30th at the age of seventy-five.

After a successful launch in Cambridge, a capacity crowd at Boston's Outside the Box 2013 and an acclaimed run in New York last summer, ICARUS flies back to Boston for a two-week run at OBERON. Liars & Believers, a local experimental theatre company and Resident Artists at OBERON, will present its new iteration of this myth today, May 1-11.

Noor Theatre Artistic Director Lameece Issaq, Executive Director Maha Chehlaoui, and Producing Artistic Director Nancy Vitale announce the world premiere of The Myth Project. This director-driven workshop production in three parts from Director/Writers Kareem Fahmy, Noelle Ghoussaini, and Pirronne Yousefzadeh, will run from tonight, May 1 - Sunday, May 4 at New York Theatre Workshop's 4th Street Theatre.

Jackie Hoffman (Hairspray, The Addams Family), Jake Epstein (Beautiful, Spiderman…) and John Tartaglia (Avenue Q, Shrek) are among the artists who will join Fred Ebb Award-winning songwriters Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond for Kooman & Dimond: Still Not Famous May 5th at the York Theatre at Saint Peter's.

Celebrating the release of her brand new CD, Live at 54 Below, Tony Award winner Laura Benanti, bares all in an evening filled with amusing stories, mesmerizing melodies and a dab of self-deprecating humor. This kooky and sexy Broadway and TV star will feature an eclectic range of music from the Great American Songbook to popular songs of today.

Broadway In Chicago has announced additional principal casting for the world premiere of AMAZING GRACE, the new musical with music and lyrics by Christopher Smith and a book by Christopher Smith and Arthur Giron, directed by Gabriel Barre (Andrew Lippas' The Wild Party) and choreographed by Tony Award winner Christopher Gattelli (Newsies).

Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd announces the cast and creative team for recent Tony Award-winning comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Appearing in titles roles are Resident Actor Jeffrey Bean as Vanya, Sharon Lockwood returning to the Alley as Sonia, Alley Artist Josie de Guzman returning as Masha, and Resident Actor Jay Sullivan as Spike. Rounding out the cast and making their Alley debuts are Rachael Holmes as Cassandra and Sarah Nealis as Nina. Jonathan Moscone, Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater, helms the production and returns after having directed the Alley's 2011 production of Amadeus.

New Georges (Susan Bernfield, Producing Artistic Director; Sarah Cameron Sunde, Deputy Artistic Director; Jaynie Saunders Tiller, Managing Director) will present workshop presentations of new plays by Jam artists Dipika Guha (The Architecture of Becoming with Women's Project), Mary Elizabeth Hamilton (current member of EST's Youngblood), and Anna Moench (The Pillow Book at 59E59; Gormanzee at The Flea) as part of The New Georges Jam On Toast, a brand-new play festival featuring work by The New Georges Jam, a 'performance gym' for early-career female playwrights and directors founded in 2010 by Lucy Alibar, Jess Chayes, and Portia Krieger. The works in progress will be directed by Sarah Krohn (Victor Frange Presents Gas at Incubator Arts Project; 2013 Boris Sagal Fellow at Williamstown Theatre Festival), Pirronne Yousefzadeh (QVC with Partial Comfort; The Tenant with Woodshed Collective), and Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Colt Coeur's Fish Eye at HERE; Missed Connections with Ars Nova). The festival will also feature cabaret-style pieces and special presentations by Sofia Alvarez (Between Us Chickens at South Coast Rep), Eliza Bent (Blue Wizard/Black Wizard at Incubator Arts Project; The Hotel Colors at The Bushwick Starr), Mary Birnbaum (Artistic Director of art.party.theater.company), Katie Brook (She Is King at Dixon Place; American Realism at The Invisible Dog), Meghan Finn (Take Me Home with Incubator Arts Project/3LD; Erin Courtney's The Service Road; Mac Wellman's AFAR at Dixon Place), Morgan Gould (co-creator of Young Jean Lee's Untitled Feminist Show),Caroline V. McGraw (2013 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow), and Mia Rovegno (The Civilians' Pretty Filthy II at Joe's Pub; We Play for the Gods with Women's Project).

Earn your blood at the tag team match of the century, with the survival of two families in the balance. The Echo Theater Company presents the world premiere of an outrageously violent, seriously dark and surprisingly funny new play about backyard wrestling. Larry Biederman directs Backyard by Mickey Birnbaum, opening May 31 at the Echo's new home, Atwater Village Theatre.

Two River Theater, under the leadership of Artistic Director John Dias and Managing Director Michael Hurst, announces the lineup of productions for its 2014/15 Season. The year will include world-premiere plays and musicals that have been developed at the theater, including Your Blues Ain't Sweet Like Mine, a new play written and directed by Tony Award-winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson; and Be More Chill, a musical by Joe Iconis and Joe Tracz, adapted from the novel by Ned Vizzini and directed by Scott Ellis. The season will also include a range of world masterpieces and American classics, and work for audiences ages three and up

Off-Broadway's award-winning Irish Repertory Theatre presents its final production of its 2013-2014 Season, a revival of Gardner McKay's SEA MARKS, directed by Ciaran O'Reilly. The romantic two-hander will star Tony and Drama Desk Award nominee Xanthe Elbrick (CORAM BOY, Irish Rep's CANDIDA) and Patrick Fitzgerald (Irish Rep's GIBRALTAR). SEA MARKS will be performed now through June 15th on the Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage of the Irish Repertory Theatre (132 West 22nd Street). The Press Opening is Monday, May 5, 2014 at 7PM. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

On April 27, 2014 a private reading of the upcoming musical adaptation of BRAVE NEW WORLD took place in an undisclosed Midtown Manhattan venue.

Atlantic Theater Company has announced full casting for Nancy Harris' play OUR NEW GIRL, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch. Lisa Joyce, Henry Kelemen and CJ Wilson will join previously-announced Atlantic Theater Company founding member Mary McCann for the US premiere production.